“Brian Wansink [Love him and his manipulations!–Got to work w/ him a few years ago :)] is the director of Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab, the author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, and all-around food psychology genius. People, he said, are more likely to eat a food when they associate with it qualities they’d like to see in themselves. So a man who wants to be strong and masculine is more likely to eat a food described as strong and masculine — hence the prevalence in American culture of meat as a manly food. Besides, he said, America has some of the most psychographically segmented advertising in the world — all messages that the food we eat is subconsciously saying something about us. “The reason we can view food as a commercial product is because we’ve never had a major starvation or a food shortage. We’ve always had an abundance of food,” he said. In India, it occurred to me, food was sacred, an elemental life force that provided sustenance, a resource we rarely took for granted. In the U.S., instead, it was an extension of one’s identity, a phenomenon made possible by the United States’ unique history of unrivaled luxury.” (Source; emphasis mine)

Hmpf. What if your food was JUST your food and was not your gender, identity, sexuality, or ambition? What if your food was JUST YOUR NOURISHMENT?